From Titanic to Yeats in books for collectors

That time of year has arrived once again when antiquarian book dealers issue their new catalogues, and two were issued this week containing a large number of highly desirable items for collectors.

Some of these are not necessarily of interest to bibliophiles alone. In the catalogue just released by Davidson Books of Ballynahinch, Co Down, for example, number 182 comprises a list of 24 aquatints taken from the Dublin landscape painter Jonathan Fisher's Scenery of Ireland published in London in 1795. Although patronised by that talented amateur artist, the first Earl of Portarlington, Fisher's popular success was achieved primarily through the means of engravings, beginning with a set of six views of Killarney produced in 1770.

The full set of Scenery of Ireland illustrated in a series of prints of select Views, Castles and Abbies, drawn and engraved in Aquatint by Jonathan Fisher ran to 60 plates.

Those now being offered by Davidson Books include a number of different views of the rivers Liffey and Shannon, Roscrea and Bective Castles, and of Dublin Bay; they are being sold individually at prices between £40 and £55 sterling. Another item in the same catalogue, number 176, is a book published in 1912 and called The Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic: The Ocean's Greatest Disaster edited by Marshall Everett. This work is particularly noteworthy because it includes a number of photographic reproductions such as that showing the vessel's wireless operator Harold Bride being carried ashore, his feet bandaged.

In addition, there is a four-page list of the dead according to the class in which they were travelling and a number of accounts of the tragedy as told by survivors (£225 sterling).

Davidson Books is also offering a copy of the Royal Commission's report on the Easter 1916 Rising and published the same year (number 280, £150 sterling). The other catalogue just produced is that from De Burca Rare Books, in which a large number of entries are devoted to items of Yeatsian interest. One of these, number 419, is for a signed limited edition of J M Synge's The Aran Islands, first published in Dublin in 1907.

This is one of only 150 copies then produced, with hand-coloured illustrations by Jack B Yeats, who signed the work along with Synge, and as a result, the price being asked is £8,250.

Another item, number 466, is also from the hand of Jack B Yeats. His Life in the West of Ireland was published in Dublin in 1912 with 32 line drawings and 16 reproductions of his paintings (£975).

Just as exceptional is number 468, a work called Broadsides: A Collection of Old and New Songs dating from 1935. This contains illustrations not just by Jack Yeats but also, among others, Sean O'Sullivan, Harry Kernoff and Maurice MacGonigal (£1,250).

And finally in this section, number 469 is a copy of A Little Book of Bookplates by Jack Yeats, another limited edition reproduced in 1979 mainly from the original blocks: it features the artist's designs for his sister Lily, John Quinn and Lennox Robinson and is offered for £275.

For further information on Davidson Books tel 048-97562502 and on De Burca Rare Books, tel 01-2882159

A signed limited edition of J M Synge's The Aran Islands, first published in Dublin in 1907, and one of only 150 copies then produced, has hand-coloured illustrations by Jack B Yeats, who signed the work along with Synge. It is for sale in De Burca Rare Books' new catalogue, priced £8,250

Sir Samuel Ferguson's book Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland is one of the books in Davidson Books' new catalogue, and is priced £95 sterling